Challenge Brief

1.
UpSocial - Casp 43 08010 Barcelona – T +34 934 123 449 – www.upsocial.org - @UpSocialBCN
Challenge Brief
How to better connect young people and the unemployed with
quality job opportunities?
Deadline for submission of proven innovations: 10/05/2015
Complete the online form at www.upsocial.org
Presentation
Concerns about unemployment and low quality employment are growing as the problem
becomes chronic, suggested by the high rates of unemployment and underemployment.
Therefore, this challenge is focused on identifying proven innovations that improve
connections between supply and demand for employment, especially for young people
with a medium to high level of studies (secondary school, technical college or university)
without forgetting other age groups.
Definition of quality employment
§ Quality employment is “one that gives the worker certain skills – the ability and
flexibility to perform a set of tasks over which they have personal control,
collaborating with their colleagues to develop teamwork and, over this
collaboration, to choose and pursue a number of objectives and demand an income
in exchange for their work that allows them access to greater consumption
capacity." F. Green, Princeton University (2006)
§ Quality employment must consider "the objective characteristics relating to
employment, both in relation to the workplace and to specific elements of the
work; the worker characteristics and their contribution regarding the work; the fit
between the worker characteristics and the requirements of job; and the subjective
evaluation of this set of characteristics by the individual worker." European
Commission (2001)
Project areas
In particular, this challenge seeks to identify initiatives operating in the following areas:
§ Brokerage: information, guidance, support and mentoring.
§ Employability: second chance to do secondary school or professional training,
dual training, work placements in an environment rich in SMEs.
§ Promotion of technological and scientific vocations, where there is the highest
present and future offer of skilled employment.
§ Training and formal, informal and non-formal education, tailored to the needs of
companies.
§ Promotion of entrepreneurship: ecosystem, incubation, support, training, funding,
etc.